NewsBits: Java gets a brand new schedule

These are the developer and database NewsBits for the week ending September 8th. In this edition:

Oracle resyncs Java around OpenJDK

Vagrant 2.0 arrives

Coming to your compiler soon: LLVM 5.0

Facebook puts down Yarn 1.0

CockroachDB shows off cross cloud migration

Build your own SQLite clone

And finally: do you missed your iPhone's headphone jack?

Here are the NewsBits:

Developer Bits

Java - Oracle's putting Java on a six monthly release train, open sourcing its commercial JDK extensions for performance monitoring, shipping a straight GPLV2 JDK and removing the redistribution restrictions on the runtime. It's a big shake up for how Oracle manages Java with the company apparently looking to work around blocker features which make updating the Java language tricky. Later this month, September 21st, Java 9 is due to arrive and bring a whole range raft of features.

Vagrant - Hashicorp's Vagrant, a tool for automating developers virtual machine setup, has been updated to Vagrant 2.0. This isn't a huge bump from a 1.0. As the changelog shows its been under constant improvement since its 2013 1.0 release. Creator Mitchell Hashimoto notes that the 2.0 has reached "a lot of goals we wanted to achieve: multi-provider, fantastic Windows support, stable installers, etc. We feel we've now achieved that in a very stable way, so its time to call it 2.0."

LLVM - The world of LLVM, now the infrastructure for many compilers, has had an update, to LLVM 5.0 with C++17 support, new optimizations and lots of bug fixes. As an aside, one external project using LLVM 5 is Zig, a developing language which sets out to replace C - and you have to love a language with its zen built into the compiler.

Yarn - Facebook's JavaScript package manager Yarn has hit version 1.0. Yarn is an alternative to Node's npm, with a local package cache populated from npm repositories and the ability to lock down dependencies. The new 1.0 adds workspaces to share packages within projects and auto-merging of lock files (where dependencies get locked down).

Database Bits

CockroachDB - We like a good demonstration and this CockroachDB demo is one of them. A cluster of database nodes split across two different cloud providers and the data migrating back and forth between the two sides.

DIY - If you have a penchant for building your own database, why not follow Connor Stack with Let's Build a Simple Database, a developing series of tutorials as Stack creates a clone of SQLite.

And Finally

Miss that headphone jack on your iPhone 7? This guy did and went to fix the problem. It's cost him thousands of dollars, many broken iPhones, screens, and a huge amount of time but he's managed to put a Lightning headphone adaptor inside the phone.

Dj Walker-Morgan is Compose's resident Content Curator, and has been both a developer and writer since Apples came in II flavors and Commodores had Pets. Love this article? Head over to Dj Walker-Morgan’s author page to keep reading.